Book: Selected Writings of Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya
Chapter: Buddhism: A Religion of Compassion (1921)
Blurb:
This is one of Allan Bennett’s shortest articles and was published through his Ceylonese friends, in The Buddhist Annual of Ceylon 1921. It shows his thought coming full circle. In his lecture on the Four Noble Truths in 1901, he had summed up Buddhism through the word, ‘pity’. In this article, he argues that the greatest spiritual achievement of Buddhism could be summed up in one word, compassion. His implication is that World War I might not have happened, if this quality had been developed in the west.